Okay, more like "these past three-ish weeks I learned," but I decided to enlighten you on the little things in Cairo while I upload photos to my new shutterfly account! Mostly because Facebook refuses to let me upload photos. Stupid Facebook. Anyway:
- There are cats everywhere. If I don't see at least 10 as I'm walking anywhere, then there's something wrong. It's always amusing to watch them if I'm waiting for someone outside, so that's good. What's bad is that many of them are so adorable, especially the kittens (aww!), but they are seriously fierce. And covered in disease.
- There is trash everywhere. There's an environmentalist inside of me who flinches and cringes as I walk around, and wants to go around and spend her life picking up all the trash in Cairo. Unfortunately, wherever the trash would eventually end up is probably just as bad as it being on the streets, but I still wish I had the time.
- Cairo is not the the place to live if you do not pay attention to your surroundings. For one, cars will park literally everywhere, and if you're not attentive as you're maneuvering around them, you will find that some other car or scooter will sneak up behind you and honk to announce their presence, inevitably making you jump and making them laugh. Also, walking can be dangerous - if you don't pay attention to where you're stepping, you'll find yourself tripping over a random stone, or a pile of trash, or a hole in the sidewalk/pavement, or one of the incredibly tall curbs, or the occasional unfortunate dead cat.
- Everything delivers. Literally, everything delivers. The tiny grocery down the street? The fruit place? McDonalds? Every single restaurant? Even the alcohol store (apparently aptly named "Drinkies") have scooters for their delivery boys which you can see weaving through traffic. The problem with this, however, is making sure you get what you want. This problem would probably not exist if we were better in Arabic, but it adds a certain element of adventure to our lives.
- Just because you are shopping at an established looking store does not mean that you can get change. So, we spend more time than we probably should worrying about the 100 pound notes in our wallets because they're useless most of the time.
- One of the best features of the streets of Cairo are the juice shops: little places where you wander in, buy a glass of whatever kind of juice, and drink it there. I almost always get mango just because it's so good, but the orange and sugarcane is also fabulous and there was some other weird one that I wish I knew how to order because it was fantastic. Not the kind of place you'd think would be legit, but all the ones I've been to have been really good.
Anyway, I'm off to bed, but hope you learned something. The whole 'uploading pictures' thing didn't work, but I'll keep trying. Some of us have been able to upload pictures to Facebook, so check those out if you can!
- There are cats everywhere. If I don't see at least 10 as I'm walking anywhere, then there's something wrong. It's always amusing to watch them if I'm waiting for someone outside, so that's good. What's bad is that many of them are so adorable, especially the kittens (aww!), but they are seriously fierce. And covered in disease.
- There is trash everywhere. There's an environmentalist inside of me who flinches and cringes as I walk around, and wants to go around and spend her life picking up all the trash in Cairo. Unfortunately, wherever the trash would eventually end up is probably just as bad as it being on the streets, but I still wish I had the time.
- Cairo is not the the place to live if you do not pay attention to your surroundings. For one, cars will park literally everywhere, and if you're not attentive as you're maneuvering around them, you will find that some other car or scooter will sneak up behind you and honk to announce their presence, inevitably making you jump and making them laugh. Also, walking can be dangerous - if you don't pay attention to where you're stepping, you'll find yourself tripping over a random stone, or a pile of trash, or a hole in the sidewalk/pavement, or one of the incredibly tall curbs, or the occasional unfortunate dead cat.
- Everything delivers. Literally, everything delivers. The tiny grocery down the street? The fruit place? McDonalds? Every single restaurant? Even the alcohol store (apparently aptly named "Drinkies") have scooters for their delivery boys which you can see weaving through traffic. The problem with this, however, is making sure you get what you want. This problem would probably not exist if we were better in Arabic, but it adds a certain element of adventure to our lives.
- Just because you are shopping at an established looking store does not mean that you can get change. So, we spend more time than we probably should worrying about the 100 pound notes in our wallets because they're useless most of the time.
- One of the best features of the streets of Cairo are the juice shops: little places where you wander in, buy a glass of whatever kind of juice, and drink it there. I almost always get mango just because it's so good, but the orange and sugarcane is also fabulous and there was some other weird one that I wish I knew how to order because it was fantastic. Not the kind of place you'd think would be legit, but all the ones I've been to have been really good.
Anyway, I'm off to bed, but hope you learned something. The whole 'uploading pictures' thing didn't work, but I'll keep trying. Some of us have been able to upload pictures to Facebook, so check those out if you can!
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